Lockheed submits formal application to Dept of Commerce to operate a commercial remote-sensing system.
Pentagon "Bottom-Up" review panel recommends serious trimming of BMDO budget in future, focussing effort on tactical defence and keeping strategic defence at the technology-study stage. The panel is thinking about whether to endorse the Follow-on Early Warning System, or endorse canning it and going with an upgraded DSP plus Brilliant Eyes (although the smart money is on the latter). It says Milstar 2 should go ahead, and development of new launchers should not (instead, an "austere upgrade" would be done to existing ones).
Internal feuding within NASA continues, as the SSF office releases its own comparison of cost estimates for SSF vs. the redesign plans, and Griffin writes to O'Connor [head of redesign] saying that the redesign cost numbers stack the deck against B and in favor of C to the tune of $3G. Reportedly, Gibbons has assured House Democrats that Clinton will not pick C.
White House starts to look over the station options, as the mood in Congress turns increasingly hostile. There is some concern that the bottom line will end up being "Option D" -- "none of the above" -- since all of the redesign schemes have overshot all the cost targets.
As predicted, the major costs savings identified are in management during development and operations after launch. The biggest hardware-related saving is the decision that Soyuz will be *the* lifeboat.
Under any option, NASA will pick one prime contractor, eliminate Reston, combine NASA functions to halve the civil-service contingent, base the project at one NASA center, and re-combine the associate-administrator positions for station and shuttle.
Also under any option, NASA will consolidate station and shuttle facilities and teams, design the station to operate for 24 hours without ground intervention in a pinch, focus training on the more probable failures, and emphasize the "Express" program for science experiments.
Bonnie Dunbar, heading redesign science evaluation, says that there is little point in pursuing any of the options if they cannot be carried through to permanent manning. Stopping at a man-tended configuration costs too much for the science return, relative to Spacelab.
One of several open questions is the orbit. Both 28.8 and 51.6 degrees will be included in the report that goes to Clinton. 51.6 would limit shuttle payloads, but allow access by Russian and Japanese launchers and offer more emergency-landing sites in "friendly territory". The international partners reportedly prefer 28.8 [which is not much of a surprise for 2 out of 3 of them, since the ESA and Japanese modules are too heavy for shuttle launches to 51.6 unless something is changed].
Goldin and Vest both say that they have no personal favorite among the options, and that Clinton will make the choice. Suspicions linger that Goldin has tried to stack the deck in favor of C. Congress had a number of NASA officials testify under oath -- unusual -- at a recent hearing. The cost estimates for option B, in particular, include nine "utilization" shuttle flights, compared to five for A and two for C. [This is just the latest manifestation of the station's long-standing fundamental problem: the lack of clear-cut requirements and priorities.]
The X-30, as a manned SSTO airbreather, is dead -- USAF and NASA have dropped plans for full-scale development. The program has been re-oriented to technology development and ICBM-launched tests. Col. Philip Bruce, acting X-30 program manager, says that the full-scale flight test would have cost $2G/year for six years, and there is no prospect of finding that much in the current budget situation. The re-oriented program will cost $200-400M/year for six years, roughly what has been provided in the past.
The ICBM-launched flight tests, it is hoped, will resolve the big technical uncertainties for the X-30: where the X-30's boundary layer would go from smooth to turbulent, how well scramjets will perform at high Mach numbers, and whether stability/control issues are really manageable. The tests, dubbed Hyflite, will start in 1996-7, depending on budget. Three phases are proposed, with Hyflite 1 and 2 tests using surplus Minuteman boosters, and Hyflite 3 requiring surplus Titans. Two Hyflite 1 tests will focus on the boundary layer, using a Minuteman launched on a depressed trajectory, levelling off at 100kft at Mach 12-15 to get 15 seconds of data before hitting ocean about 200mi out. The dynamic pressures involved are well beyond anything any Minuteman test has reached, but studies indicate that the booster can take it. Three Hyflite 2 tests will fly 30%-scale scramjets running on gaseous hydrogen to determine whether positive thrust is possible in realistic flight; flight conditions and procedures will be similar to Hyflite 1. It is currently thought that the Hyflite 2 tests will actually come first, because instrumentation for Hyflite 1 will be much more complex. These five tests would be flown about six months apart. Hyflite 3 would fly three tests of an unmanned 30%-scale X-30, about the size of an F-16, starting sometime after 1998. This vehicle will be big enough to prove the technology for the full X-30. It would separate from the Titan at about 110kft and Mach 12-15 and accelerate for about 30s to gain roughly another 1.5 Mach numbers, reaching a peak of 200kft and landing in the ocean near Hawaii. [It is unclear whether it would be recovered.]
Finally, NASP has new management. USAF Col. Steve Heaps replaces the departed Robert Barthelmy as boss, and Col. Phil Aitken-Cade replaces the retiring Col. Bruce as deputy.
GD identifies the cause of the recent Atlas failure: an inadequately- tightened setscrew in a pressure regulator allowed a calibration shaft to rotate out of adjustment under flight vibration. The shaft is being redesigned, and quality control is being beefed up. GD finds no major fault with the launcher, and hopes to fly the next one in mid-July. [They did, it worked.] This would limit the schedule slip to about 10 weeks, minimizing impact on the dense launch schedule of the next 18 months. The USN has, as predicted, refused to accept delivery on the stranded satellite, since it is operationally useless; the contract with Hughes specified delivery in Clarke orbit after testing.
FAA authorizes use of GPS for nonprecision approaches to US airports, subject to a long list of restrictions that will be loosened gradually.
Altruism is a fine motive, but if you | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology want results, greed works much better. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry